BENCHMARKING
culture of ethical conduct. The underlying
principles supported by the parliamentarians and Clerks whom we interviewed align with the standards in public life developed by the Nolan Committee. These reflect the fiduciary relationship between parliamentarians and citizens and the responsibilities of parliamentarians as public office holders and are widely respected. They provide: 1. Selflessness Members should act solely in terms of the public interest.
2. Integrity Members must avoid placing themselves under any obligation to people or organisations that might try, inappropriately, to influence them in their work. They should not act or take decisions in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends. They must declare and resolve any interests and relationships.
3. Objectivity Members must act and take decisions impartially, fairly and on merit, using the best evidence and without discrimination or bias.
4. Accountability Members are accountable to the public for their decisions and actions and must submit themselves to the scrutiny necessary to ensure this.
5. Openness Members should act and take decisions in an open and transparent manner. Information should not be withheld from the public unless there are clear and lawful reasons for so doing.
6. Honesty Members should be truthful.
7. Leadership Members should exhibit these principles in their own behaviour. They should actively promote and robustly support the principles and be willing to challenge poor behaviour wherever it occurs. The boundaries of acceptable
behaviour are clear from the research, but there is a range of views about some of the detail. There is general agreement that parliamentarians should to treat each other and the parliament with respect, dignity and courtesy. Some argue that a dress code should be incorporated but it seems this is rarely an issue. Few would argue against a provision that a parliamentarians must not assault, harass, or intimidate another person, sexually or otherwise.
It is also widely accepted that a Member should not accept any item, gift, hospitality or favourable treatment that a reasonable person might think could give rise to a conflict of interest. As this general proviso relies on an interpretation of ‘reasonable’, it is desirable to include some guidance on the threshold values (adjusted for inflation) of gifts etc. that a parliamentarian could accept. Conflict of interest is one of the most important aspects of a code. It is widely accepted that sources of income, assets or liabilities could make a parliamentarian feel that his or her personal interests could suffer if he or she acted in the public interest or conversely, could be advantaged if personal interests were put ahead of the public interest. For that reason, many houses of parliament require parliamentarians to disclose their sources of income, their assets and their liabilities; these are published so that the public can check any allegations that a parliamentarian has failed to respect his or her obligations as a public officer.
A sensitive aspect is the values of interests. Ideally, these should be part of the disclosures. Whilst is may seem intrusive, it is genuinely in the public interest to know whether a parliamentarian’s sudden, unexplained increase in the
40 | The Parliamentarian | 2015: Issue One
value of his or her assets has been acquired legitimately (e.g. inheritance from deceased parent) or from some mysterious source at the time of say, a government grant to a business. There should be
continuous disclosure of each parliamentarian’s sources of income, assets and liabilities (including updates), wherever suitable modern technology is available, in a similar way to disclosures by businesses whose shares, stocks or securities are publicly traded. Technically, it is simple for an adjustment to be advised and published on the business day on which it occurs, but it is reasonable to allow slightly longer period. Where such information technology is not available, the parliament should use the best technology it has to register and publish parliamentarians’ interests (including updates) as quickly and as frequently as practicable. These disclosures must respect the reality that interests held by a parliamentarian’s spouse or children could also create a conflict of interest; they should likewise be disclosed. Whilst this may appear to intrude on the privacy of family members, the underlying principle is disclosure of interests with the potential to compromise the parliamentarian’s performance of his or her public duty. It goes without saying that no parliamentarian should accept, or offer another parliamentarian, a bribe or other inducement to cast a vote, ask a question or act on behalf of any person, whether a constituent or otherwise. Whilst there may be common law or criminal law covering bribery, etc. and parliamentarians should be subject to the normal operation of the law, it is desirable that the code also cover such matters.
Advice on ethical conduct Parliamentarians, new and long-serving, often find themselves facing dilemmas about the ethics of decisions or actions. Recently elected parliamentarians especially may find themselves faced with ethical questions quite different to the types of decisions they had to make in their previous occupations. Even for many of those who were public officers in the public service or elsewhere (e.g. teachers), it would have been rare to have to think about respecting the public trust principle. Likewise for those who previously worked in business or served in trade unions, the interests of their organisations, workforce or membership would have been their legitimate primary concerns rather than the public interest.
Ethics advice is valuable to parliamentarians and should form an integral part of a code of conduct. Some parliaments have successfully established positions and even whole offices to support parliamentarians in relation to meeting the standards of ethical behaviour expected under a code. However, the models vary widely, ranging from a single person appointed part time (e.g. New South Wales Ethics Adviser) to a full time commissioner with support staff responsible for not only ethics advise to parliamentarians but also the disclosure of parliamentarians interests and the investigation of complaints (e.g. UK Commissioner for Parliamentary Standards). The scope and scale of an office providing ethics advice must have regard to the size and resources available to the parliament. That office’s budget in some large parliaments in wealthy countries is larger than the entire budget for many smaller parliaments. For that reason our proposals
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